English fulfils man’s aspirations

The world has been shrinking for a long time and today it has become a global village. Jets travelling at the speed of sound and fast communication methods should take the credit for shrinking the world to a manageable size. With such advances in science and technology, what will happen to widely used languages such as English, French, German and Chinese? Will there be a super world language superseding the existing languages?

According to moderate estimates, about 470 million speak Mandarin Chinese, more than any other language. However, Mandarin Chinese has not become a world language as it is confined to China. The next most popular language is English, spoken by more than 340 million people spread in 32 countries. Today, English reigns supreme as the most popular world language. It is increasingly being used in science, technology and international business. The vocabulary of English has grown to 500,000 words as a result of borrowing words from other languages.

Roland Kaehlbrandt: “German is a very functional language”

Everything is in a state of flux. In an age in which you cannot step into the same river twice, certain nationalistic feelings have sent danger signals to the supremacy of English. For instance, fear is mounting among Germans that their language is being eroded by waves of English. Today about seven out of 10 Germans speak some English. However, German business leaders are reported to be growing tired of English management terms. In fact, certain German firms fight shy of using English marketing slogans for fear of eroding nationalistic feelings. Although about 60 percent of new words used in German are English, Germans are trying to preserve their own language.

Functional language

Roland Kaehlbrandt, the author of German for Elites says that German is a very functional language. Walter Kraemer of the German Language Association said the country’s science and industry were damaged as a result of Germans falling back on English. According to him people think better in their own language.

A similar situation has erupted in Spain which has dropped compulsory English classes held for certain segments of people. Spain’s Socialist Party and the Conservative Popular Party are at loggerheads over the use of English in business and science. The Conservative Popular Party insists that English has enhanced the trilingual policy of the country.

Despite nationalistic feelings simmering in the country, India has retained English as one of its official languages. Indians have realised the English language heritage in literature and culture casting all other languages to the shade. Certain Indian authors such as R.K. Narayan have opted to write only in English. However, there are a few English educated people who refuse to speak the language on the pretext of not understanding it. Such people can be found even in Sri Lanka. It is strange but true that some of these people enjoy reading English literature and even translate English books into other languages without speaking a word of English!

Prestigious position

It is a moot point to consider whether English will lose its prestigious position because of the surging nationalistic feelings. Will French, German or Mandarin Chinese become a global language? Although these languages are spoken by millions of people across the globe, it is unlikely that any one of them will replace English as an international language.

Attempts have been made to introduce artificial languages to replace English from its pre-eminent position. Way back in 1887, some experts invented a new artificial language known as ‘Esperanto’, thinking that it would become a global language. Esperanto was essentially a distillation of the Romance languages. Although it is easy to learn, it does not have the intrinsic vitality found in a natural language. At present, there are about 100,000 speakers of Esperanto in different parts of the world.

Those who were disillusioned with Esperanto attempted to invent another language. In the Mediterranean world a Lingua Franca (Language of the Franks) was invented mainly for the merchants of the area. The new artificial language was a mixture of Italian, French, Spanish, Greek and Arabic.

Language of the world

With the communication revolution, experts are trying to invent a Lingua terra or a language of the world. English is likely to make up a large part of the new language which would borrow words and idioms from various other world languages. Nobody knows whether it would face the same fate as Lingua Franca.

An artificial language is likely to become a hotchpotch of grammatical rules, vocabulary and idioms and it would be quite unintelligible to the people. However, if it ever comes into existence, all of us have to learn it in addition to our own languages.

In hindsight, no rational person will feel the need for an artificial language as English has fulfilled man’s aspirations. If we need more from English, it will do so because it has a vast reservoir of words, idioms, proverbs and what not.